


a feeling of being closer.

by commonemergency



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Slice of Life, a fic about plants and home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-28 21:38:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16250288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commonemergency/pseuds/commonemergency
Summary: Maybe home and familiarity was two men and their abundance of houseplants.





	a feeling of being closer.

**Author's Note:**

> " _Go back to your books, and your armchair. Plant your trees, watch them grow. If more people valued home above gold, this world would be a merrier place._ " — Thorin Oakenshield.

Familiarity is the smell of freshly watered plants. It’s a place they come to often because of failed terrariums and impulsive decisions. It’s nice to be able to know where everything is in a shop for once. There’s a succulent that Dan has been eyeing for months in the back, it sits right in front of the window, often being seen by others but never picked up. He gets eye level with it, holding their groceries in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. 

They didn’t plan on leaving the house for a while but Dan wanted to go for a walk but didn’t want to go alone. Phil decided to make a small day out of it, suggesting that they look at the new stuff in the shop, maybe buy more because of how dried and dead everything was when they got back. 

“We can’t go overboard,” Dan reminded him when they finally got there. Phil makes a face as if to say, ‘ _of course not_ ,’ knowing how they both are. 

He never used to care so much about houseplants until Phil. He never used to care about a lot of things. Learning to take care of something other than himself and Phil was a learning experience that he liked to do because it didn’t have the same weight as an animal or child, there wasn’t any real long term repercussions if a plant died, but it was still sad, in a way. 

“Dan,” Phil says from his side of the store.

Dan looks over and Phil looks very deep in thought staring at a peculiar plant. 

“I want it.” Phil says, he’s smiling, fascinated by whatever it is. 

Dan walks over to him, bending down to look. 

It’s a venus flytrap. 

They stand there, watching it, waiting for it to move, Phil tempted to stick his finger in there despite the sign saying not to do that. Phil had never been good at listening to rules when it came to things like this, he felt like he had to do it. Dan blames it on him being a younger brother while swiping his fingers away with a snort. 

“We just got those,” One of the workers says coming up to them, scaring both Dan and Phil. 

“They’re so cool.” Phil says with a polite smile, looking at Dan. 

“There’s no way we can keep it alive.” Dan says with another laugh. 

“But—”

“I can’t. It’s too much responsibility. I’d feel bad if we killed it.” Dan’s voice goes higher. The worker laughs leaving them to it. 

Phil takes one look, the pad of his finger pressing the top ever so slightly before walking away from it. 

*

They spend thirty more minutes in the shop, coming out with more than what they came there for. It’s dark by the time they get home and feels much later than what it actually is. 

They place the plants they’ve bought on the table and Dan fetches his terrarium to try and fix the damage as best as he can, adding new life to it. 

 

*

Familiarity is repotting old plants to watch them grow. 

It’s a cloudy day outside and apparently a two man job to repot this particular plant. Dan’s got his sleeves rolled up and he’s in his sweatpants. Phil has got the same casual wear going on, but his hair is a bit everywhere and his glasses has smudges on them. It drives Dan crazy and he swears that Phil does it on purpose. 

“I wish I was fit enough to do this for a long period of time,” Dan says about their squatting, watching as Phil carefully grabs one of their plants from the inside. 

“Yeah, I think we need to get back on the exercise.” Phil says with a laugh. He then waits for a moment, deep in thought before nodding to himself, “Okay, so I’m just going to break this up I guess.”

Dan watches Phil break the soil, and he grabs the new pot that they bought. Phil adds the new soil so he can slot the old with the new. 

Phil presses gently down on the soil and reaches for the watering can they have and Dan smiles at their teamwork. 

“Live long, my son.” Phil says, getting up from squatting, he reaches out to help Dan up and they stare at their line of plants that they’ve been working on and trying to bring them all back to life. 

*

They’re sitting on their balcony watching the pretty sunset with a bottle of wine between them. There’s music playing from inside that they can hear faintly but mostly it’s the outside sounds that surround them. It’s not bad either, Dan won’t admit to it but he missed the sounds that only London could bring. 

It was like missing an old friend. 

“I want flowers.” He says, taking another sip of the white wine, finishing it off with the sip. 

“We’re not really flower people.” Phil says with a yawn. He tips his head back a little, the sky is orange with specks of pink. He’d take a picture but it wouldn’t do it justice. 

“No.” Dan agrees, “but we could be.”

*

When Dan leaves for back home he reminds Phil to water the plants with a gross amount of emoji’s. Phil says he won’t forget but to definitely remind him later that night. 

(Thankfully, he reminds him before he went out to the art museum.)

Phil spends a lovely day with Martyn and Cornelia, they’re heading back to his flat when they pass by the shop again. Phil peeps through the window and he looks to his brother and Cornelia. They go in and Phil looks at the flowers they’ve got. He doesn’t know what flowers Dan likes, he never really mentioned liking flowers all that much before, but Phil has to agree that they are nice to look at and smell. 

Phil remembers Dan looking at the succulents and cactuses the last time they were in here, he goes over to the window and sees the numerous kinds that they’ve got before his eyes spot a cactus, he reads the label and looks at the difficulty level of taking care of it. There’s not much, just water it from time to time and let the sun do the rest. 

He grabs it and takes it to the till. 

“Haven’t you killed enough houseplants?” Martyn teases. 

Phil would give him the finger but he shrugs his shoulders instead. “What’s one more, yeah?” 

He won’t tell his brother that this is one of their many shared passions they have, like a couple years ago when Dan brought home flowers, it wasn’t because of anything really other than the fact that he wanted them. It was nice to come home to see them sitting on their dining room table. Maybe they won’t last very long, maybe their lifespan is only a few days, it was still nice to have them around for however long it managed to stay alive with Dan and Phil’s many attempts to try and _keep_ it alive. 

Phil walks away with a cactus in hand and a smile on his face. 

“You’re weird,” Martyn says with a fond laugh. 

Cornelia shoves Martyn gently in the ribs. “You killed my houseplants.” 

Phil sticks his tongue out in response to that. “Looks like it runs in the family.”

*

One of the greatest things about Dan is how appreciative he is when people get him something. Phil never knows how to react when people buy him things, but he loves doing it for Dan. He watches the way Dan’s eyes shift from being surprised to being genuinely grateful that Phil went out of his way to get him a cactus (that is meant to grow a flower). It’s an easy middle ground for the both of them. 

He stares at it for a long time, it’s small now, there’s nothing really special about it—in hindsight it’s just a cactus, but Phil shows him what it’s meant to look like when it’s fully grown. It’s beautiful. 

“Thank you.” Dan says with a small voice, he doesn’t dare poke it but he wants to, like it signifies that it’s real and that it’s for him if he does. 

Instead he takes a picture of it. It’s the kind of picture he takes when he wants to commemorate something, and maybe, in a couple of months when it’s grown he can do a comparison and post it. For now it just belongs to Dan and Phil. 

*

Later that night when they’re laying in bed, Phil turns over to Dan curling into his side, he whispers, “I still want a venus flytrap.” 

“Someday,” Dan says, and he means it. 

(Maybe home and familiarity was two men and their abundance of houseplants.)

**Author's Note:**

> comments/kudos appreciated! 
> 
> talk to me on tumblr/twitter: **@nihilismdan.**
> 
> [read and reblog](http://nihilismdan.tumblr.com/post/178903875148/a-feeling-of-being-closer-pairing-danphil) on tumblr.


End file.
